What. A. Shocker.

What else can I say? Time and time again, President-elect Donald Trump proved me wrong over the past 18 months and he did so again last night in historical fashion. I doubted he would make a serious push for the presidency, doubted he would win the Republican primary, and doubted he would hang with Hillary Clinton throughout the general election campaign. And, on the eve of election day, I doubted he would even come close to making the final tally respectable.

Last night, he shut me up for good. Congratulations to Donald Trump on defying the odds, overcoming countless obstacles, and winning the highest office in the land. Although I questioned him and called him out, I can’t take away the grit, talent, and the determination that man has.

I love behind the scenes photos. Seeing this glimpse of the Trump camp watching the election returns was pretty cool.

I got a little more than I bargained for last night. As someone who never obsessively latched onto a candidate, I wanted to see at least a tiny bit of drama unfold as the votes rolled in. You know how a football fan who has no interest in the teams playing in the Super Bowl wishes only for a good game? Well, much in the same way, last night I wanted to see a competitive race in what was supposed to be a runaway. What I got was the most unpredictable, surprising, underdog victory in political history.

Watching the coverage last night, I kept asking myself is this really happening? As I watched the surprising results unfold and monitored the social media chatter, I could actually sense inside of me the air deflating from the Clinton camp and the confidence rising in the Trump camp. Yes, what occurred was so surreal and unexpected that I could feel the shift inside of me. I went to bed at 1:30 a.m. last night, about an hour before the media projected Trump would win the presidency but a couple hours or so after the writing was on the wall. When I awoke this morning, I turned on the TV and the ticker on CNN boldly proclaimed DONALD TRUMP ELECTED U.S. PRESIDENT. At that moment, the reality sunk in.

I woke up this morning and took this photo of my TV screen. Even though I went to bed with Trump having the election in the bag, it was still shocking waking up to the news.

I take full blame for underestimating President-elect Donald Trump. But of course, I am not the only one. Please bear with me for another football analogy…

In 2008, the New York Giants faced the undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. The Giants weren’t given a chance. It was supposed to be a blow out. Perhaps the most lopsided game in Super Bowl history. A snoozer. From the time the matchup was set, the media talked nonstop about the Pats. New England had superstars, a superior passing/ground game, and a legacy to defend. The team also had impressive statistics that were sure to help them play that much better on that particular Sunday. We all know what happened…

The upset of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party reminded me of the upset of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in 2008.

When I saw this morning that Donald Trump had won the presidency, it reminded me a little bit of when the Giants beat the Patriots 17-14 to win the 2008 NFL title. Despite a media desperate to crown its own champion along with fancy statistical models seemingly backing up the anointed choice, the exact opposite happened in both cases.

I think the national media can do a better, less biased job. I think the constant polls that are shoved down our throats can be less frequent and much more scientific. Along with myself, I blame the media and polling professionals for getting this all so wrong.

Disappointed with a Trump presidency? That is fine, but please remember to express yourself in a civil way. In anticipation for this bitter election, I wrote a full eight months ago about the road we should never travel if our preferred candidate is not elected. It is time to heal and it is time to support the person we elected as president. What a saga it was. Don’t Blink.

Wow. It is a little hard to believe that we find ourselves on the eve of the 2016 Presidential Election. If you read this blog regularly, you know that for the past 16 months or so I have written about the many twists and turns this race has taken. I followed the announcements, the rallies, the debates, the conventions, and everything in between. Now, with just hours until the polls open, it is a little surreal.

Throughout this race, I have kept an open mind. Although I know who I will vote for tomorrow, I tried my best to listen to the ideas of both candidates. In fact, I listened to the ideas of one candidate in person. In March, I went to a Hillary Clinton rally here in Myrtle Beach. But while I never saw Trump in the flesh, I did usually stop what I was doing to watch his massive rallies when they were aired by the cable news stations. Usually nothing short of a circus, I was always intrigued and sometimes entertained by what Trump would say.

In my opinion, I think this race can be best characterized as a comedy of errors by both the Trump and Clinton teams.

It almost goes without saying that Donald Trump was his own worst enemy. I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times he sent out bizarre tweets, tangled in feuds with people he shouldn’t, and kept talking way past the point when he should have shut up. However, even with his blunders, what Donald Trump managed to do this election cycle has been nothing short of amazing. I recognized this and have given him credit. However, I also have called out. In the end though, Trump’s inability to show discipline at some crucial times will probably cost him the White House.

When it comes to Hillary Clinton, I just have one question: How did she and her campaign allow this race to be so close? It seemed like Donald Trump personally gift wrapped the election and gave it to Hillary over and over again. But she never capitalized on it. Some questionable moves, an FBI investigation, and a heavy dose of dishonesty has placed her almost neck and neck with Trump the day before the election. Even with the help of the current president, the media, and countless celebrities, Clinton is sweating out tomorrow’s outcome.

Don’t get me wrong though, even with two flawed candidates, I have enjoyed watching and following the day-to-day developments of this bitter presidential race. This unprecedented time in American history will culminate for me tomorrow when I go vote. I haven’t come close to revealing who I will support and I am going to keep it that way.

But I will offer my prediction. Even though polls have tightened and Trump has grabbed momentum, I think Hillary Clinton will win comfortably tomorrow. However, just like in sports, upsets do occur. Come tomorrow, I will be on my couch watching as an historic evening plays out. Don’t Blink.

We have reached the point where we are past “the final stretch” of the presidential election. Instead, we have pretty much arrived at game time. To use an analogy one of my coaches used to make, “the hay is in the barn.” Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have battled and campaigned their hearts out. With less than 2% of undecided voters out there, the next President of the United States is probably pretty much already selected. We now just have to wait a little more than 48 hours for the final verdict to come in. Of course, many of us will be passing this time monitoring and sounding off on social media.

With that said, let me just offer three guidelines we can all keep in mind over the next two days as we peruse the social media waters.

1. When it comes to social media, feel free to proudly make your candidate preference known. It is your first amendment right and I personally like reading the ideas, thoughts, and opinions of my friends. However, try to be respectful and don’t take the bait. If you see someone on Twitter who doesn’t agree with you or just appears to not agree with you, there is no need to engage them by tweeting at them. Likewise, if someone writes a book on Facebook about an issue or candidate that you don’t agree with, what do you really gain by responding? Unless you are aiming for an embarrassing argument for all to see along with a bunch of annoying notifications, I would advise to just keep your opinions on your own Facebook page.

2. Don’t let Facebook give you anxiety. Although I have a tough time believing that people can actually allow the presidential election to disturb their mental health, by all means take proper precautions if it does. If the decision between Donald and Hillary is keeping you up at night, it is best to stay off of social media the next couple of days. Trust me, you probably won’t like what you see.

3. Finally, and most importantly, don’t use social media to utter the absolute worst phrase you possibly can. Come Tuesday night, no matter who becomes our nation’s President-elect, please don’t make mention of wanting to leave the country. Seriously, please don’t.

Exactly four years ago on this date, I wrote about how special a presidential election night is. I still feel this way and I will make sure to give Tuesday evening my utmost respect. Social media can both enhance and diminish from the sanctity of what the night is all about. Choose to honor it. Don’t Blink.

For those of you who know me, it comes as no surprise that I tell you I have a lot of quirks. For those who know me well enough that you are in my phone’s contacts, you have most likely experienced one of these quirks on every major holiday. With that said, it is with a little bit of sadness that on this Halloween evening I need to make an important announcement and lay to rest one of my personal traditions.

I am ending my holiday text message greeting.

For the past nine years, I have spent time, thought, and money creating a text/picture message for every major holiday to send my contacts. These messages have always been over the top and rather silly (for the complete background on how these holiday greetings came to be, click here). Meant just as much to make fun of myself as they were to jab at the people who sent a generic “Merry Christmas” text to their entire contact list, they started to become more and more popular over the years. They also started to become more time consuming too.

For over a decade, I staged over the top photos to accompany holiday text messages. My Christmas Eve photos were always a little wacky. Besides sending these photos to my family and friends, I have never published any of these photos before because I considered them an “exclusive” for those I especially cared about.

After about the fifth year of sending out holiday messages, I started asking myself what can I do this time around? How can I top last year’s Christmas Eve reindeer stable message? How I can top last year’s makeshift Easter egg hunt greeting? I started to go to greater lengths to make more outrageous messages and at times it took away from my time actually enjoying the holiday. As my wife and mom might be able to tell you, it started to get a little out of control.

Easter and Fourth of July photos were always fun to do.

But I am not ending my holiday text message greetings just because of the time component. Factoring into the decision is also the fact that I am now 30. I am married and I have a baby on the way. At some point you have to grow up just a bit. Unfortunately wearing Santa costumes, sporting goofy hats, and writing sappy messages aren’t quite in tune with the “growing up” process.

I will miss having an excuse to connect with my friends and family I don’t get to talk to often. I will miss the texts of gratitude I received from people who would text back and I say I brightened their holiday. I will even miss the mean texts from my college friends and brother who would always text back saying I was an idiot and embarrassing.

For the Christmas Day photos I always tried to “class it up” a bit.

What I won’t miss is the stress of coming up with a concept for each holiday. I won’t miss driving from party store to party store looking for different props. I won’t miss going up to random doorsteps asking people if I could use their holiday display as a backdrop for my photo. I won’t miss ferociously sending out the message on the morning of every holiday.

I want to thank everyone who has been a recipient of my messages over the years for tolerating them. You all have been a gracious audience. If anyone else wants to pick up the torch and start sending out your own holiday messages, I can sure hook you up with a bunch of old props. Don’t Blink.

For today’s Sunday blog post, I wanted to share some good news about an issue that has caused me some inconvenience over the past year. Thankfully, it has a happy ending (at least for now).

A year ago, I was informed that I had received a ticket for tinted windows in the state of New York. At the time, I was a little perplexed considering I had not visited New York in seven years and I had never even thought about tinting my windows. It became obvious that some scumbag had stolen my driver’s license information.

After a couple long frustrating hours on the phone with New York’s Traffic Violation Division, it became clear that I would have to fight this charge and prove that it wasn’t me. I had to submit an Affidavit In Lieu of Appearance form and provide evidence that would make you think I was on trial for murder. However, my efforts paid off and I was cleared of the violation.

I went on with my life but a few months later I got another shady letter from the state of New York. This time around I supposedly disobeyed a traffic device. I called the New York’s Traffic Violation Division to plead with them that they not make me go through the long and pointless process again. I begged them to do some type of police work to bring the criminal using my identification to justice. My effort fell on deaf ears. I was sent another Affidavit In Lieu of Appearance form and to my knowledge nothing was done to investigate the loser with my information.

Okay, let’s fast forward to this past week. I got home from work and checked the mail to find an envelope from the Pennsylvania State Police. In the back of my head I thought it probably had something to do with my stolen identity issue. I was actually expecting the worst, thinking “I” had been pulled over in a whole different state for another infraction. I was pleasantly wrong…

I received this letter from the Pennsylvania State Police on Thursday.

I opened the envelope to find correspondence from a Pennsylvania State trooper telling me that he had stopped and arrested someone who had in his possession a fraudulent identification card with my information on it. The trooper encouraged me to call him for more information. Ecstatic, I called the number as soon as I could whip my phone out. It connected me to the Pennsylvania State Police Office. I asked for the trooper who had made the arrest. The person who answered the phone told me he would not be in until 11 p.m. that night. As you can probably imagine, I called back at approximately 11:06 p.m. later that evening (I wanted to give him some time to get in the office and get settled).

The envelope had a packet inside that informed me someone had been arrested who had a fraudulent identification card with my information on it.

When I called the second time I was immediately put into contact with the excellent law enforcement officer who had recovered the fraudulent ID with my information on it. He was kind, professional, and helpful. After exchanging pleasantries, he asked me if I had dealt with any identity theft problems before.

I told him all about the state of New York.

The trooper then gave me a huge sigh of relief when he said that my story made a lot of sense because the person he had arrested was from New York. At that moment, I felt great. To have it confirmed that the New York and Pennsylvania cases were connected brought me peace of mind. Before getting in contact with the trooper that day, I feared that perhaps multiple people in different states had my info.

I listened as the trooper told me a lot of good information. The dude he arrested was a career identity theft criminal. When they pulled him over, he had presented an identification card that didn’t have my information on it. However, because of this man’s record, they decided to search his vehicle. When they did, they found the fraudulent card with my data on it. They found fraudulent credit cards but none with my info on it (thankfully). The trooper told me I could refer him immediately to New York authorities if the state ever bothered me again. He took down my information and said he would keep me updated on the investigation and prosecution of the criminal.

I would like to thank the Pennsylvania State Police for not only taking this guy off the streets but for notifying me about everything. For a certain time period I felt pretty helpless but now I am at ease. Don’t Blink.